"Actor: Anthony Stewart Head"

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 1 | DVD | (03/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  Welcome to the Hellmouth... Girl Power stalks the streets and graveyards of Sunnydale kicking out and laying waste to the vast pools of vampire scum that threatens to overrun not only the unassuming little town but the entire known world. Season One brings Buffy into contact with her Watcher Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) as well as the support gang who will help her in her quest to combat evil: Willow (Alyson Hannigan) Xander (Nicholas Brendon) Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter) and

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Complete Season 1-7 (New Packaging) | DVD | (03/10/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £33.95

  From its charming and angst-ridden first season to the darker, apocalyptic final one, Buffy the Vampire Slayer succeeds on many levels, and in a fresher and more authentic way than the shows that came before or after it. How lucky, then, that with the release of its boxed set of seasons 1-7, you can have the estimable pleasure of watching a near-decade of Buffy in any order you choose. (And we have some ideas about how that should be done.) First: rest assured that there's no shame in coming to Buffy late, even if you initially turned your nose up at the winsome Sarah Michelle Gellar kicking the hell out of vampires (in Buffy-lingo, vamps), demons, and other evil-doers. Perhaps you did so because, well, it looked sort of science-fiction-like with all that monster latex. Start with season 3 and see that Buffy offers something for everyone, and the sooner you succumb to it, the quicker you'll appreciate how textured and riveting a drama it is. Why season 3? Because it offers you a winning cast of characters who have fallen from innocence: their hearts have been broken, their egos trampled in typically vicious high-school style, and as a result, they've begun to realise how fallible they are. As much as they try, there are always more monsters, or a bigger evil. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the core crew remains something of a unit--there's the smart girl, Willow (Alyson Hannigan) who dreams of saving the day by downloading the plans to City Hall's sewer tunnels and mapping a route to safety. There are the ne'r do wells--the vampire Spike (James Marsters), who both clashes with and aspires to love Buffy; the tortured and torturing Angel (David Boreanz); the pretty, popular girl with an empty heart (Charisma Carpenter); and the teenage everyman, Xander (Nicholas Brendon). Then there's Buffy herself, who in the course of seven seasons morphs from a sarcastic teenager in a minidress to a heroine whose tragic flaw is an abiding desire to be a "normal" girl. On a lesser note, with the boxed set you can watch the fashion transformation of Buffy from mall rat to Prada-wearing, kickboxing diva with enviable highlights. (There was the unfortunate bob of season 2, but it's a forgivable lapse.) At least the storyline merits the transformations: every time Buffy has to end a relationship she cuts her hair, shedding both the pain and her vulnerability. In addition to the well-wrought teenage emotional landscape, Buffy deftly takes on more universal themes--power, politics, death, morality--as the series matures in seasons 4-6. And apart from a few missteps that haven't aged particularly well ("I Robot" in season 1 comes to mind), most episodes feel as harrowing and as richly drawn as they did at first viewing. That's about as much as you can ask for any form of entertainment: that it offer an escape from the viewer's workaday world and entry into one in which the heroine (ideally one with leather pants) overcomes demons far more troubling than one's own. --Megan Halverson

• Darren Lynn Bausman - Repo! A Genetic Opera | DVD | (09/03/2009) from £6.99   |  Saving you £9.00 (128.76%)   |  RRP £15.99

  By fusing Rocky Horror Picture Show and Blade Runner this futuristic tale of horror modernizes the rock opera genre with original music and rich dark production design.

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Complete Season 4 | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £34.20   |  Saving you £0.79 (2.31%)   |  RRP £34.99

  In its fourth season, Buffy the Vampire Slayer had to change its formula radically. Two major characters--the vampire-with-a-soul Angel and Cordelia, the queen bitch of Sunnydale High--had gone off to be in their own show, Angel, and soon after the start of the season Willow's werewolf boyfriend Oz left when Seth Green needed to concentrate on his film career. Buffy and Willow started college, where they met new characters like Riley, the All-American Boy with a double life, and Tara, the sweet stuttering witch; but Xander and Giles found themselves at something of a loose end. Several characters were subjected to the radical re-envisioning possible in a show that deals with the supernatural: the blond vampire Spike came back and soon found himself with an inhibitor chip in his head, forced into reluctant alliance with Buffy; the former vengeance demon Anya became passionately smitten with Xander. Not all fans were happy with the central story arc about the sinister Dr Walsh (Lindsay Crouse) and her Frankensteinian creation Adam, though Crouse's performance was memorable. The strength of Season Four was perhaps most in impressive stand-alone episodes like the silent "Hush", the multiple dream sequence "Restless" and the passionate, moving "New Moon Rising", in which Oz returns, apparently cured, only to find that Willow is no longer waiting for him. This was one of the high points of the show as a vehicle for intense acting, perhaps only equalled by "Who Are You?", in which the evil slayer Faith takes over Buffy's body and Sarah Michelle Gellar gets to play bad girl for once. --Roz KaveneyOn the DVD: Buffy Season 4 was a hit and so is this sublime box set. The commentaries for "The Initiative", "This Year'sGirl", "Superstar" and "Primaveral" are all well above average, but are nothing compared to "Hush" and "Restless" where Joss Whedon gives out all the information and insights any fan would dream of. The four featurettes included are a pleasure to watch, especially the evolution of the sets for the show. The scripts, trailers and cast biographies complete the set and make for a decent addition to your Buffy archive. The soundtrack is in 2.0 Dolby surround, but the image is as grainy and dark as the previous seasons on DVD. --Celine Martig

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 5 | DVD | (08/05/2006) from £29.93   |  Saving you £5.06 (16.91%)   |  RRP £34.99

  The complete fifth season of Buffy's vampire vanquishing adventures. Episodes comprise: 1. Buffy Vs. Dracula 2. Real Me 3. The Replacement 4. Out Of My Mind 5. No Place Like Home 6. Family 7. Fool For Love 8. Shadow 9. Listening To Fear 10. Into The Woods 11. Triangle 12. Checkpoint 13. Blood Ties 14. Crush 15. I Was Made To Love You 16. The Body 17. Forever 18. Intervention 19. Tough Love 20. Spiral 21. The Weight Of The World 22. The Gift

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Complete Season 7 | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £79.99

  The seventh and final series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer begins with a mystery: someone is murdering teenage girls all over the world and something is trying hard to drive Spike mad. Buffy is considerably more cheerful in these episodes than we have seen her during the previous year as she trains Dawn and gets a job as student counsellor at the newly rebuilt Sunnydale High. Willow is recovering from the magical addiction which almost led her to destroy the world, but all is not yet well with her, or with Anya, who has returned to being a Vengeance demon in "Same Time, Same Place" and "Selfless", and both women are haunted by their decisions. Haunting of a different kind comes in the excellent "Conversations with Dead People" (one of the show's most terrifying episodes ever) where a mysterious song is making Spike kill again in spite of his soul and his chip. Giles turns up in "Bring on the Night" and Buffy has to fight one of the deadliest vampires of her career in "Showtime". In "Potential" Dawn faces a fundamental reassessment of her purpose in life. Buffy was always a show about female empowerment, but it was also a show about how quite ordinary people can decide to make a difference alongside people who are special. And it was also a show about people making up for past errors and crimes. So, for example, we have the excellent episodes "Storyteller", in which the former geek/super villain Andrew sorts out his redemption while making a video diary about life with Buffy; and "Lies My Parents Told Me", in which we find out why a particular folk song sends Spike crazy. Redemption abounds as Faith returns to Sunnydale and the friends she once betrayed, and Willow finds herself turning into the man she flayed. Above all, this was always Buffy's show: Sarah Michelle Gellar does extraordinary work here both as Buffy and as her ultimate shadow, the First Evil, who takes her face to mock her. This is a fine ending to one of television's most remarkable shows. --Roz Kaveney

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 1 (New Packaging) | DVD | (03/10/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £27.99

  Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) looks like your typical perky high-schooler, and like most, she has her secret fears and anxieties. However, while most teens are worrying about their next date, their next zit, or their next term paper, Buffy's angsting over the next vampire she has to slay. See, Buffy, a young woman with superhuman strength, is the "chosen one," and she must help rid the world of evil, namely by staking demons. The exceptional first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer introduces us to the treacherous world of Sunnydale High School (where Buffy moved after torching her previous high school's gym). The characters there include "watcher" Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) and the original "Scooby Gang" members--friendly geek Xander (Nicholas Brendon), computer whiz Willow (Alyson Hannigan), and snobbish popular girl Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter)--who aid Buffy in her quest. Those used to the darker tone that Buffy took in its later seasons will be surprised by the lighter feeling these first 12 episodes have--it's kind of like Buffy 90210 as the cast grapples with regular teen problems in addition to saving the world from demonic darkness. Fans of the show will enjoy the crisp writing, the phenomenal chemistry of the cast (already well-established within the first few episodes), and the introduction to characters that would stay for many seasons, including moody vampire Angel (David Boreanaz). Through it all, Gellar carries the series with amazing confidence, whether conveying the despair of high school or dispatching various demons--she's one of TV's most distinctive and strongest heroines. --Mark Englehart

• Buffy The Vampire Slayer - The Complete DVD Collection | DVD | (19/11/2007) from £104.99   |  Saving you £75.00 (71.44%)   |  RRP £179.99

  From its charming and angst-ridden first season to the darker, apocalyptic final one, Buffy the Vampire Slayer succeeds on many levels, and in a fresher and more authentic way than the shows that came before or after it. How lucky, then, that with the release of its box set of seasons 1-7, you can have the estimable pleasure of watching a near-decade of Buffy in any order you choose. (And we have some ideas about how that should be done.) First: rest assured that there's no shame in coming to Buffy late, even if you initially turned your nose up at the winsome Sarah Michelle Gellar kicking the hell out of vampires (in Buffy-lingo, vamps), demons, and other evil-doers. Perhaps you did so because, well, it looked sort of science-fiction-like with all that monster latex. Start with season 3 and see that Buffy offers something for everyone, and the sooner you succumb to it, the quicker you'll appreciate how textured and riveting a drama it is. Why season 3? Because it offers you a winning cast of characters who have fallen from innocence: their hearts have been broken, their egos trampled in typically vicious high-school style, and as a result, they've begun to realize how fallible they are. As much as they try, there are always more monsters, or a bigger evil. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the core crew remains something of a unit--there's the smart girl, Willow (Alyson Hannigan) who dreams of saving the day by downloading the plans to City Hall's sewer tunnels and mapping a route to safety. There are the ne'r do wells--the vampire Spike (James Marsters), who both clashes with and aspires to love Buffy; the tortured and torturing Angel (David Boreanz); the pretty, popular girl with an empty heart (Charisma Carpenter); and the teenage everyman, Xander (Nicholas Brendon). Then there's Buffy herself, who in the course of seven seasons morphs from a sarcastic teenager in a minidress to a heroine whose tragic flaw is an abiding desire to be a "normal" girl. On a lesser note, with the box set you can watch the fashion transformation of Buffy from mall rat to Prada-wearing, kickboxing diva with enviable highlights. (There was the unfortunate bob of season 2, but it's a forgivable lapse.) At least the storyline merits the transformations: every time Buffy has to end a relationship she cuts her hair, shedding both the pain and her vulnerability. In addition to the well-wrought teenage emotional landscape, Buffy deftly takes on more universal themes--power, politics, death, morality--as the series matures in seasons 4-6. And apart from a few missteps that haven't aged particularly well ("I Robot" in season 1 comes to mind), most episodes feel as harrowing and as richly drawn as they did at first viewing. That's about as much as you can ask for any form of entertainment: that it offer an escape from the viewer's workaday world and entry into one in which the heroine (ideally one with leather pants) overcomes demons far more troubling than one's own. --Megan Halverson

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 2 (New Packaging) | DVD | (03/10/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £27.99

  At the heart of the first years of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the romance between Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar), slayer of all things evil, and hunky Angel (David Boreanaz), the tortured vampire destined to walk the earth with a soul. The second season of Buffy took the Buffy-Angel pas de deux from ecstasy to agony in a now-classic plot arc that catapulted the show from WB teen drama to true TV greatness. You see, if the cursed Angel ever experiences true happiness for a moment, he'll revert to being an evil vampire again. And guess what happens after Buffy and Angel finally declare their love for one another and consummate their relationship... Buffy found its true momentum during the second season, as geeky Xander (Nicholas Brendon) fell in love with popular girl Cordelia (Charisma Carpenter), Willow (Alyson Hannigan) gave up her crush on Xander in favour of werewolf boy Oz (Seth Green), and watcher Giles (Anthony Stewart Head) began a sweetly tentative relationship with computer teacher (and witch) Jenny Calendar (Robia LaMorte). Mayhem came to Sunnydale, though, in the form of evil vampires Drusilla (Juliet Landau) and Spike (drolly wicked James Marsters), who were more than ready to aid and abet Angel as he turned bad. It all sounds like horror-action mayhem (and there are great fight scenes), but Buffy took on its plotlines with amazing depth, intelligence, and humour. And oh, man, the love story! Buffy and Angel's tragic relationship is one of the most heartbreaking you'll ever find. Buffy's final dilemma finds her having to save the world at Angel's expense, and Gellar (who deserves a passel of Emmys for her work) is phenomenal at telegraphing Buffy's swirling conflicts between love and duty. This is some of the best TV ever made, period. --Mark Englehart

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 7 (New Packaging) | DVD | (03/10/2011) from £26.98   |  Saving you £1.01 (3.60%)   |  RRP £27.99

  The seventh and final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer begins with a mystery: someone is murdering teenage girls all over the world and something is trying hard to drive Spike mad. Buffy is considerably more cheerful in these episodes than we have seen her during the previous year as she trains Dawn and gets a job as student counselor at the newly rebuilt Sunnydale High. Willow is recovering from the magical addiction which almost led her to destroy the world, but all is not yet well with her, or with Anya, who has returned to being a Vengeance demon in "Same Time, Same Place" and "Selfless," and both women are haunted by their decisions. Haunting of a different kind comes in the excellent "Conversations with Dead People" (one of the show's most terrifying episodes ever), in which a mysterious song is making Spike kill again in spite of his soul and his chip. Giles turns up in "Bring on the Night" and Buffy has to fight one of the deadliest vampires of her career in "Showtime". In "Potential" Dawn faces a fundamental reassessment of her purpose in life. Buffy was always a show about female empowerment, but it was also a show about how ordinary people can decide to make a difference alongside people who are special. And it was also a show about people making up for past errors and crimes. So, for example, we have the excellent episodes "Storyteller", in which the former geek/supervillain Andrew sorts out his redemption while making a video diary about life with Buffy; and "Lies My Parents Told Me," in which we find out why a particular folk song sends Spike crazy. Redemption abounds as Faith returns to Sunnydale and the friends she once betrayed, and Willow finds herself turning into the man she flayed. Above all, this was always Buffy's show: Sarah Michelle Gellar does extraordinary work here both as Buffy and as her ultimate shadow, the First Evil, who takes her face to mock her. This is a fine ending to one of television's most remarkable shows. --Roz Kaveney

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Complete Season 3 | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £79.99

  Action-packed Season Three develops major characters and plot lines brewing over the last couple of years. The Mayor, this season's major baddie, wants to become an invincible demon by slaughtering everyone at Sunnydale High's graduation ceremony but he's going to torture them all by giving his speech first. Bad-girl vampire-slayer Faith wants to get one over on Buffy and becomes even more rotten. Angel comes back from hell but isn't sure what to do about his girlfriend. Willow meets her evil gay vampire duplicate from another dimension. Xander loses his virginity but still has to contemplate his essential uselessness. Cordelia gets less whiny and has to work in a dress-shop when her father becomes bankrupt. Giles wears tweed and drinks tea, though it is revealed that he used to be a warlock and in a punk band. Besides the soap opera, there are monsters, curses and vampires (inevitably). --Kim Newman On the DVD: The DVDs are presented in a standard television 4:3 picture ratio and in a clear Dolby sound that does full justice both to the sparkling dialogue and to the always impressive indie-rock and orchestral scores. Special features include an overview of Season Three by its creator Joss Whedon, and by writers Marti Noxon, David Fury, Doug Petrie and Jane Espenson and documentaries on the weapons, clothes special effects of the show and the speech/verbal tone which makes it what it is-"Buffyspeak". The episodes "Helpless", "Bad Girls", "Consequences" and "Earshot" have commentaries by, Fury, Petrie, director James Gershman and Espenson, in which we find out some fascinating details about the way the scripts mutate and about the particular illuminations added to scripts by actors' performances. After complaints about the Season 2 DVD packaging, the disc envelopes include a protective coating. --Roz Kaveney

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 4 (New Packaging) | DVD | (03/10/2011) from £13.69   |  Saving you £14.30 (104.46%)   |  RRP £27.99

  Having battled a hellish vampire master, an evil boyfriend, a rogue slayer, a giant man-eating demon-snake thing, and a particularly nasty high school principal, Buffy Summers embarked on one of her biggest challenges in the fourth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: college. With boyfriend Angel out of the picture (and on his own show) and Sunnydale High destroyed, new horizons were to be tackled for Buffy and the rest of the Scooby gang. There were cute guys (Buffy's new boyfriend Riley), cute girls (Willow's new girlfriend Tara--yes, Willow's gay!), frat parties, irritating roommates, harsh professors, and, oh yes, a secret military initiative that was experimenting on the demon population (Riley's part of it). Buffy truly hit its golden years in the fourth season--just when you thought this show couldn't get any better, Joss Whedon and his creative team pulled out all the stops and took Buffy and co. into rich new territory. By far, the highlight of the season (and the entire series) was the Emmy-nominated "Hush," a nearly dialogue-free episode in which the creepy "Gentlemen" rob Sunnydale of its collective voice, and Buffy and Riley finally come face to face with each other's hidden identities. While Frankenstein-esque monster Adam wasn't the show's best villain (you'll have to wait until next season's Glory for that), he was a worthy adversary for the biotech age, and the military milieu was a nice contrast to Buffy's previous gothic outings. Season 4 also marked the return of blonde vampire Spike (who developed a crush on Buffy), the ascension of vengeance demon Anya to full-time cast status, and the brief return of bad slayer Faith (in a fab two-part body-switching episode). Throughout, the entire cast, headed by the unparalleled Sarah Michelle Gellar, worked television magic of the kind rarely seen on the small screen. This is Buffy at its best. --Mark Englehart

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Complete Season 2 | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  After the first season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer became a ratings success the show was renewed with a bigger budget and twice as many episodes. Seeds are sown through the early episodes for many of the stunning plot developments later in the season: there's a slow burn for the relationships building between Buffy and Angel (no surprise), Giles and Jenny (nice surprise), and Xander and Cordelia (huge surprise). Most importantly, we're introduced to important semi-regulars Spike and Drusilla ("School Hard"), Oz ("Inca Mummy Girl") and fellow Slayer Kendra ("What's My Line Part 1"). Their appearances tackle youth issues such as sibling rivalry, sexual maturity and rejection. But nothing that came before it prepared audiences for the latter half of season 2. In the extraordinary double act of "Surprise" and "Innocence" every aspect of the show grows up in a big hurry: the result of Buffy sleeping with Angel is a series of tragedies everyone is powerless to predict or prevent, a piece of powerful storytelling conveyed with pared-down dialogue and remarkable performances from the young cast. All of these threads are tied together then torn apart by the two-part finale "Becoming". With a cliffhanger ending to rival The Empire Strikes Back, the second chapter of Buffy The Vampire Slayer closes in tantalising style leaving everything at stake. --Paul Tonks On the DVD: The computer-animated menu opens this gorgeous box set in style with a tour through a dark and oppressive cemetery, a lavish display of graphics that's all the more impressive when compared to the uneventful DVD for the first season. Most of the extra features are concentrated on the last disc, which includes the obligatory biographies, trailers and TV spots that add little value to hardcore fans but serve as a good introduction to the world of Buffy for non-adepts. The three featurettes are captivating: "Designing Buffy" offers a wealth of information about the set designs, and even includes a walk through of Buffy's home; "A Buffy Bestiary" features every monster from the second season, and "Beauty and the Beats" explores the make-up artistry and special effects. There are also brief cast interviews, in which James Masters ("Spike") reveals his American accent. All in all the extras make a worthy accompaniment to the spectacular season 2 episodes, though one might regret that Joss Whedon did not offer a commentary on the double bill season finale "Becoming". --Celine Martig

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 5 (New Packaging) | DVD | (03/10/2011) from £26.98   |  Saving you £1.01 (3.60%)   |  RRP £27.99

  The fifth season of Joss Whedon's hit series started out in excellent form as slayer extraordinaire Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar) did battle with the most famous of vampires (that Dracula guy) and then went on to spar with another nemesis, little sister Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg). Wait--Buffy has a teenage sister? Where has she been the past four years? And why is everyone acting like she's always been around? Turns out that young Dawn is actually "The Key," a form of pure energy that, true to its name, helps open the gates between different dimensions. To protect said key from falling into the wrong hands, a group of monks gave it human form and sent it to the fiercely protective Buffy for safekeeping, creating new memories of Dawn for everyone as if she'd existed... well, always. Why all the super secrecy? There's this very, very, very bad girl named Glory (Clare Kramer) who wants the key very badly, and will do anything to get it. Oh, and by the way, Glory isn't just a run-of-the-mill demon... she's way worse. Some fans will tell you that Buffy "jumped the shark" with the introduction of Dawn, when in actuality this season was the pinnacle of the show's achievement, as there was superb comedy to be had ("Buffy Vs. Dracula," the double-Xander episode "The Replacement," the introduction of the "Buffybot" in "Intervention") as well as some of television's best drama. The Whedon-scripted and -directed "The Body" remains one of Buffy's best episodes, when the young woman who faces down supernatural death on a daily basis finds herself powerless in the wake of her mother's sudden passing. The first third or so of the season was a bit choppy, but once the evil Glory came into her own, Buffy was a television force to be reckoned with. Kramer was the show's best villain (after the evil Angel, natch), and the supporting cast was never better. But as always, it was the superb Gellar who was the powerful centre of the show, sparking opposite lovelorn vampire Spike (James Marsters) and wrestling with moral dilemmas rarely seen on television. With this season, Buffy Summers became, like Tony Soprano, one of television's true greats. --Mark Englehart

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 3 (New Packaging) | DVD | (03/10/2011) from £24.90   |  Saving you £3.09 (12.41%)   |  RRP £27.99

  The third season of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer was marked by the arrival in Sunnydale of renegade slayer Faith (Eliza Dushku), a moody loner who seemed to like her demon-staking calling just a little too much. While Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) was always wary of Faith, the two developed a deep friendship and appreciative rapport--that is, until the evil mayor of Sunnydale (Harry Groener) tapped into Faith's dark side and lured her into his plot to take over the world, first as a double agent spying on Buffy, then as out-and-out nemesis. And as the mayor's ascension approached--which happened to fall on Sunnydale High's graduation day--Buffy and Faith's battles got nastier and nastier, as Buffy attempted to wrestle with her dark side (literally and figuratively), save the world and her friends, and keep her lover Angel (David Boreanaz) out of Faith's evil clutches. Chock-full of exceptional episodes, this third season started out with a bang (the superb season opener "Anne," in which a runaway Buffy finally returns to her Slayer calling) and never let up. Among other highlights, the season introduced former vengeance demon and soon-to-be regular Anya (Emma Caulfield), fleshed out Angel's tortured character (and readied him for his own series), and featured a hilarious doppelganger Willow (Alyson Hannigan), a vampire from a parallel universe, who in Willow's own words was "evil and... skanky... and kinda gay!" (Total foreshadowing there, folks.) The season's pièce de résistance, though, was the two-parter "Graduation Day," wherein Faith tries to kill Angel, and the students of Sunnydale High prepare to do battle with a mutated mayor and his army of demons. Aside from the series' exceptional writing and acting, this compelling year of Buffy was anchored by the consistently excellent Gellar, as well as Dushku's complicated Faith, a girl you truly love to hate. By the time you finish these episodes, Faith will have cast a spell on you that you'll find very hard to shake. --Mark Englehart

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Complete Season 5 | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £79.99

  The fifth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is about illusions and the truth that they often reveal; suddenly Buffy has a younger sister, has always had a younger sister. Michelle Trachtenberg as the moody, gawky Dawn achieves the considerable triumph of walking into an established stock company of well-known characters--Xander, Willow, Giles and so on--with the perfect assurance of a long-term member of the cast. Of course, nothing is as it seems; even Glory, the mad brain-sucking beauty in a red dress who is the villain of the year, turns out to be even more than she seems. Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy manages to convey heartbreak, self-involvement and real heroism as her relationship with her emotionally dense soldier boyfriend Riley hits the shoals and the blonde vampire Spike starts to show an altogether inappropriate interest. This season is also about the hard truth that there are some enemies it is impossible to fight. Even being around Buffy and Dawn is dangerous for their friends, as Glory and her minions proceed by a process of elimination. The eventual confrontation, when it comes, is genuinely shocking. Meanwhile, the vampire Spike's obsessed desire for Buffy takes them both to some very strange places and Willow and Tara have their love tested in the most gruelling of ways. And in the quietly upsetting episode "The Body", the cast produce their most impressive performances yet as they have to deal with another enemy they cannot fight. --Roz Kaveney

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season 6 (New Packaging) | DVD | (03/10/2011) from £99.99   |  Saving you £-72.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £27.99

  The sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer followed the logic of plot and character development into some gloomy places. The year begins with Buffy being raised from the dead by the friends who miss her, but who fail to understand that a sacrifice taken back is a sacrifice negated. Dragged out of what she believes to have been heavenly bliss, she finds herself "going through the motions" and entering into a relationship with the evil, besotted vampire Spike just to force her emotions. Willow becomes ever more caught up in the temptations of magic; Xander and Anya move towards marriage without ever discussing their reservations; Giles feels he is standing in the way of Buffy's adult independence; Dawn feels neglected. What none of them need is a menace that is, at this point, simply annoying--three high school contemporaries who have turned their hand to magical and high-tech villainy. Added to this is a hungry ghost, an invisibility ray, an amnesia spell and a song-and-dance demon (who acts as rationale for the incomparable musical episode "Once More, with Feeling"). This is a year in which chickens come home to roost: everything from the villainy of the three geeks to Xander's doubts about marriage come to a head, often--as in the case of the impressive wedding episode--through wildly dark humour. The estrangement of the characters from each other--a well-observed portrait of what happens to college pals in their early 20s--comes to a shocking head with the death of a major character and that death's apocalyptic consequences. The series ends on a consoling note which it has, by that point and in spite of imperfections, entirely earned. --Roz Kaveney

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Slayer Collection (Giles) | DVD | (01/11/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The very best of 'Buffy: The Vampire Slayer' episodes featuring her English mentor Giles...

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Series 3 (Standard plastic case packaging) | DVD | (01/06/2004) from £29.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (14.30%)   |  RRP £34.99

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• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Series 2 (Standard plastic case packaging) | DVD | (01/06/2004) from £24.28   |  Saving you £10.71 (30.60%)   |  RRP £34.99

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